Star Wars: Force Arena Review

Star Wars is one of the biggest properties ever conceived. From the vast arrays of movies and novels to videogames, it is one of the only franchises to bridge the generational gaps. The videogames have been hit and miss throughout their past, but this newest addition to the franchise is certainly one that you’ll remember. Star Wars: Force Arena is the newest, free MOBA to be released on android by Netmarble. This Korean company has a decent library of published games but this is by far their highest profile launch, and one of their few titles that are available globally. With such an untested developer it is up to the Force to determine what their game will become.

Star Wars: Force Arena had a rocky launch day. The game had gathered such a following beforehand that the servers instantly crashed. It wasn’t until nearly a week later that I was able to consistently play the game without disconnects. The game is running perfectly fine now so you shouldn’t still be experiencing constant connection drops. Once I was able to join a game I was greeted by John Williams’ wonderful score, which is a great tone setter for the battle that is about to take place between the heroes and villains of the Star Wars universe. You are able to choose between 18 different characters to lead your forces into battle. Each one of these characters has a different special ability that can potentially turn the tide in a battle. The troops you lead are cards that are part of a deck. You can get the starter cards for both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire by completing the tutorial, any other cards are unlocked in packs. Packs are earned by winning games and by playing, or they can be bought with gems and cash. You’ll almost always have packs so it is rather unnecessary to purchase these. You can get duplicate cards in these packs, but they aren’t useless. You can use them in combination with your earned credits to upgrade the original card, increasing its health and damage. Alternatively you may trade ten cards of the same rarity in for one card of the next. This system adds a little bit of a gamble into your deck creation which can come in handy. The deck system works along the lines of games such as Hearthstone. You put a maximum of seven cards into your deck to make up your forces, and these cards are randomly displayed during the match for you to use. Now that you’ve created your deck and chosen your hero, you’re ready to fight for the Alliance

Star Wars: Force Arena is practically just a simplified version of Dota or League of Legends. You have to fight down the lanes and break through the enemy's tower defenses to destroy the shield generator. Upon the destruction of the shield generator, your allied fleet launches an attack on the enemies base in a closing cutscene to the battle. The only difference in gameplay here is that the creeps that are spawned in the normal MOBA are your cards. This system introduces an interesting difference here between Star Wars: Force Arena and other MOBAs like Dota. You can choose to spawn your troops anywhere on the board as opposed to designated spawn points, which allows for interesting flanks, feints, and trick attacks to open up pathways to victory. I actually prefer the card system because of its flexibility and uniqueness. If Dota were to adopt a system like this I definitely would be more interested in the genre. Winning the battle will grant you points that will place you in a rank division. Losing will dock you a considerable amount of points, and ending in a draw will not affect you. It is best to learn strategies and card combos to set yourself apart on the playing field, and to be victorious throughout the galaxy.

If you don’t have this game yet, I strongly recommend you picking it up as soon as possible. This is one of my favourite mobile games to be released as of late, and one of the few that will have a permanent spot on my phone. Star Wars: Force Arena is a fantastic MOBA with an array of positives that will blow you away.